Masters of the everyday - Desmond Shawe-Taylor

The charm and fascination of Dutch genre paintings of the seventeenth century is the way that they capture everyday people doing everyday things. With their harmonious, light-filled interiors, these meticulously painted glimpses of lives behind closed doors provide us with an extraordinary insight into their subjects and the period. Drawing on the rich holdings of Dutch masterpieces from the Royal Collection this book analyses these jewel-like scenes and puts the paintings into their historical context, to unravel the hidden narratives, the morals and meanings in these vignettes of everyday life.